Across the Mediterranean and Outside the Law: Narcotics Trafficking in the Eastern Mediterranean during WWII

Kostis Gotsinas

On May 26, 1945, just days after Germany’s surrender and the end of World War II in Europe, two Greek sergeants of the Hellenic Royal Navy were arrested in Alexandria, Egypt, for carrying morphine ampoules in violation of local drug laws. The case itself was not exceptional, as Alexandria was a hub for drug trafficking. However, what made it unusual was the trajectory of the confiscated goods.

Allegedly originating from the Greek State Narcotics Monopoly [Κρατικόν Μονοπώλιον Ναρκωτικών Φαρμάκων], the drugs were obtained by the two sergeants in Volos, a town in Central Greece, through a local pharmacist. While the pharmacist may have legally possessed the substances, it seems the drugs deviated from the rightful distribution channels. Instead, they likely belonged to a batch of narcotics seized by communist-affiliated forces during the armed conflict with governmental and British troops in Athens in December 1944—an event that foreshadowed the impending full-scale civil war. Official reports submitted by the Greek government to the League of Nations and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) detail how the retreating Greek People’s Liberation Army (Ελληνικός Λαϊκός Απελευθερωτικός Στρατός, ΕΛΑΣ) transported northward the seized drugs removed from the State Monopoly building (Fig. 1). This would explain how the morphine ampoules found their way to Volos, though how they ended up in the pharmacist’s possession remains unclear (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1. The building of the Greek State Narcotics Monopoly in Athens, which now houses the Ministry of Health (photograph by the author, February 2024).

Fig. 2. Map entitled Dividing line between British troops and ELAS, established upon the truce concluded on January 11, 1945 (Source: Η απελευθέρωσις της Ελλάδος και τα μετά ταύτην γεγονότα [The liberation of Greece and the subsequent events], Athens: Army History Directorate, 1973).

Nevertheless, the labels on the cardboard boxes containing the ampoules, as documented by the Egyptian authorities, provide further insight into the drugs’ trajectory. They indicate that the morphine preparations originated from the pharmaceutical plant of C. H. Boehringer Sohn, located in Ingelheim am Rhein in Germany, as well as from the Medical Parks of the Military Districts of Leipzig and Hamburg (Wehrkreis-Sanitätspark IV & X). One could even speculate about the origin of the raw material used to manufacture the morphine solutions, specifically raw opium. Considering that Turkey was one of the major suppliers of opium to European and American pharmaceutical industries from the early 20th century through the 1930s, we could imagine a full circle: Anatolian opium exported to Germany, transformed there into morphine, sent to Greece, and ultimately smuggled to Egypt.

Although we lack evidence for every step of this journey, the broader patterns of narcotics production, distribution, and circulation in the first half of the 20th century emerge clearly: the supply of raw materials by a handful of opium-producing countries—Turkey, Persia, China, India, Bulgaria, Serbia; the central role of pharmaceutical companies based in Germany, France, Britain, Switzerland, or the Netherlands in the production and distribution of substances like opiates and cocaine, alongside short-lived illicit laboratories catering to the black market; and finally, the operations of smuggling networks that were, to varying degrees, organized and structured across the globe, with a focus on the Eastern Mediterranean in our case. If the Interwar period saw a shift from bulkier substances like opium and hashish to “white powders”, the case of the morphine ampoules smuggled to Alexandria—along with similar cases from this period—demonstrates that trafficking routes from Greece to Egypt remained viable and that smuggling expertise continued to be transmitted.

Thus, the story of the vials confiscated in Alexandria at the end of World War II can be interpreted as a tale of dual movements. On the one hand, a physical movement across space and beyond borders, following the maritime routes of illicit trafficking that had developed since the late 19th century—it is no coincidence that the two Greek sergeants transporting the morphine ampoules were aboard a steamship. On the other hand, a movement beyond the confines of legality, as these substances transitioned from legal commodities to war loot and eventually to illegal goods. This narrative underscores the inherent ambivalence of substances labelled as “narcotics” or “drugs”, which can function both as powerful medicines and as potential poisons. The distinction hinges on a fine line, drawn by each country’s legislation that prohibits non-medical drug use while permitting only therapeutic applications.

One might also consider a third movement: the flow of information regarding the narcotics’ disappearance and reappearance, which highlights the implementation of elaborate control mechanisms during the Interwar years and the adoption of new communication technologies. News of the drugs’ disappearance from the State Monopoly warehouse was quickly relayed to the British allies of the Greek government, seeking their assistance in recovering them. Soon, this information travelled through letters and cables to the Allied Headquarters in Italy, then to Washington, and finally to the League of Nations in Geneva. The discovery of the morphine vials in Alexandria set off a second round of communications, as the Egyptian Central Narcotics Information Bureau informed the Opium Section of the international organization on the seizure, as expected. It wasn’t long before the connection was made between the looting of the Greek Narcotics Monopoly warehouse and the smuggling of morphine ampoules in Alexandria. To confirm this connection, Sir Thomas Russell Pasha, director of the Egyptian Central Narcotics Information Bureau, sent two black-and-white photographs to the League of Nations’ Secretariat. The photographs depict the six confiscated cardboard boxes filled with glass ampoules containing morphine preparations (Fig. 3 & 4).

Figures 3 & 4: Photographs of the ampoules seized in Alexandria on May 1945 [accompanying “Marc Bay, Director C.N.I.B. to the Director of the Opium Traffic and Social Questions Sections, League of Nations No./CNIB/E/1/2231, Cairo, 31.3.1946”, League of Nations, File R4814-12-43198-387].

Serving as the visual representation—a kind of black-and-white reflection—of the original vials, these images document items that were either destroyed by the Egyptian authorities or perhaps reintroduced into legal pharmaceutical distribution channels. The recent digitisation of the League of Nations’ archives marks a final transformation, converting these paper photographs into digital images. This process of dematerialization means that we are now consulting a reflection of a reflection, unable to hold the tangible evidence of a minor smuggling case that unfolded at the end of World War II.

Archives

League of Nations (Geneva), File R4814/12/42990/387, “Illicit Traffic – Theft of drugs from the State Monopoly Depot, Athens, December 1944”.

Bibliography

Richard Davenport-Hines, The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Social History of Drugs, London: Phoenix Press, 2001.

Kostis Gotsinas, “Το όπιο του λαού: Ιχνηλατώντας τα χαμένα αποθέματα του Κρατικού Μονοπωλίου Ναρκωτικών μετά τα Δεκεμβριανά” [The opium of the people: On the trail of the lost narcotics of the State Monopoly after the events of December 1944 in Athens], in Efi Avdela & Vasso Seirinidou, Για την ιστορία του εγκλήματος και της δικαιοσύνης στην Ελλάδα, 19ος-20ός αιώνας: θεσμοί, πρακτικές, πρόσωπα [For the history of crime and justice in Greece, 19th-20th c.: Institutions, practices, individuals], Athens: Themelio (forthcoming).

Ryan Gingeras, Heroin, Organized Crime, and the Making of Modern Turkey, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Liat Kozma, “White Drugs in Interwar Egypt: Decadent Pleasures, Emaciated Fellahin, and the Campaign against Drugs”, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 33, no. 1, 2013, p. 89-101.

Michael de Ridder, Heroin: Vom Arzneimittel zur Droge, Frankfurt-New York: Campus Verlag, 2000.

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